0ad – TuxArenahttp://www.tuxarena.com
Ubuntu/Debian/Mint news and tutorials | Linux gamingTue, 03 Nov 2015 07:16:16 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.70 A.D. Alpha 18 Released with New Game Mode, Tech Tree, Formationshttp://www.tuxarena.com/2015/03/0-a-d-alpha-18-released-with-new-game-mode-tech-tree-formations/
http://www.tuxarena.com/2015/03/0-a-d-alpha-18-released-with-new-game-mode-tech-tree-formations/#commentsSat, 14 Mar 2015 10:41:29 +0000http://www.tuxarena.com/?p=61900 A.D., a beautiful, 3D real time strategy game developed by Wildfire Games, has reached Alpha 18 this Friday, getting features such as a new game mode, in-game technology tree, while the support for formations has been re-implemented (after it was dropped in A17). Alpha 18, codenamed Rhododactylos, comes with some new features, so let’s see what’s new in this release.

0 A.D. is a strategy game similar with AoE II, but with modern 3D graphics, different civilizations which lived around 500 B.C. up to 500 A.D., and a slightly different gameplay.

A new game mode, Nomad, found its way into this release. In the Nomad mode, all players start with a few workers but no Civil Center, meaning you can place your Civil Center anywhere on the map, provided you scout in the beginning.

An in-game technology tree is now available for each civilization, showing the technologies which can be researched by any of these. The “Structure Tree” is available from the Learn to Play section in the main menu, and will pop up a window showing buildings with their upgrades and cost for each civilization and phases (Village, Town and City):

Support for saved games in single-player mode has been introduced for the Petra AI as well.

Formations are supported now after they were disabled in Alpha 17 due to several bugs and slowing the game.

Other new features include a new games server, AI optimizations, reduced lag, and several major improvements to Atlas, the map editor. Unfortunately it looks like hard counters haven’t been re-implemented in this release either.

Install 0 A.D. in Ubuntu 14.04/14.10 and Mint 17/17.1

Update: The PPA has been updated to 0 A.D. Alpha 18.

There is a PPA available, however notice that at the time of writing Alpha 18 was not available, but usually it takes a day or two before it is updated. To use it type in a terminal:

]]>http://www.tuxarena.com/2015/03/0-a-d-alpha-18-released-with-new-game-mode-tech-tree-formations/feed/20 A.D. Alpha 17 – Big Changes, Speed Up [Ubuntu Installation]http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/10/0-a-d-alpha-17-big-changes-speed-up-ubuntu-installation/
http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/10/0-a-d-alpha-17-big-changes-speed-up-ubuntu-installation/#respondThu, 16 Oct 2014 11:40:41 +0000http://www.tuxarena.com/?p=44800 A.D. is a free, open-source real-time strategy game which takes place approximately between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., with beautiful 3D graphics, 12 different civilizations, and a gamestyle which is very similar to the one of Age of Empires, but also incorporating new elements as well.

Codenamed ‘Quercus’, Alpha 17 brings several new changes, and some of them have a great, positive impact over the speed response of the game. Those of you who play 0 A.D. should be familiar with the slow movement of units and low response time from Alpha 16, caused when large number of units were moved across the map. Now this has been fixed, by temporarily disabling formations. Yes, the formations are gone temporary now, but this comes to improve the gaming speed and experience.

Rushing has also received some tweaks now, by making it harder to rush early in the game now, by decreasing the range of cavalry arrows.

0 A.D. couples some technologies (as opposed to AoE) which are related, so that if you research one, you can’t research another. This alpha also unpaired some unrelated technologies.

The fog of war now works similar to Age of Empires. In previous versions, once an area was scouted, you could’ve seen afterwards if any enemy buildings are constructed in that respective area. Now buildings and changes to resources are hidden, so you will have to scout that area again.

Regarding the multi-player lobby: it has received several improvements as well. Now a new profile area has been added, where you can see the rating and games won/lost of other players. The stats have been reset as well, and a leaderboard is present since before A17 (and you can quickly register a username in-game).

Two new maps are included in this release: Siwa Oasis and Schwarzwald. Also, the Petra bot is now the default AI, having replaced the older Aegis.

The scenario editing has been improved with an event triggered feature, so that when an event takes place, a certain action will be performed.

A new mod selector is built-in for this release, which allows you to choose a certain mod created for 0 A.D..

In addition to these, improvements found their way in this release for performance, user interface and graphics, and a refined 0 A.D. sound theme.

Install 0 A.D. Alpha 17 in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr and Mint 17

There is a 0 A.D. PPA which provides the latest alpha version. To install the game, use the following commands:

You can also install the latest 0 A.D. release in Ubuntu using UbuTricks.

]]>http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/10/0-a-d-alpha-17-big-changes-speed-up-ubuntu-installation/feed/00 A.D. Announcing Apocalypse of the Deadhttp://www.tuxarena.com/2014/04/0-a-d-announcing-apocalypse-of-the-dead/
http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/04/0-a-d-announcing-apocalypse-of-the-dead/#respondTue, 01 Apr 2014 21:16:04 +0000http://www.tuxarena.com/?p=3589And if WesGold forum accounts weren’t enough for April 1st, here’s a better one: the 0 A.D. developers announce a new direction for the game, in which history and realism are substituted by the almighty hordes of zombies and the walking dead.

According to the announcement,

The name Apocalypse of the Dead works well with our current title 0 A.D. because it means we don’t have to purchase new domain names. The ‘0’ therefore signifies the start of the apocalypse.

]]>http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/04/0-a-d-announcing-apocalypse-of-the-dead/feed/012 Completely Free, Open-Source Linux Gameshttp://www.tuxarena.com/2014/02/12-completely-free-open-source-linux-games/
http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/02/12-completely-free-open-source-linux-games/#commentsMon, 24 Feb 2014 12:22:52 +0000http://www.tuxarena.com/?p=2886The overview includes only games which are completely free, with a permissive license for both the code and their content. I could not include here games like Urban Terror or Warsow, since their assets are not free, nor Steam games.

0 A.D.

A very beautiful game, 0 A.D. is a 3D medieval strategy game with different nations, incorporating elements from various other games pertaining to the genre, like Age of Empires. Still in alpha stage (and has been for a long time), 0 A.D. is playable in both single-player and online. It has great graphics, specific units and buildings for each faction, and a selection of carefully designed maps.Homepage

Red Eclipse

Red Eclipse is a shooter game set in futuristic environments, including many modes, game mutators, and trickjumps like dashing or impulse boosts. Just like Sauerbraten below, it’s based on the Cube 2 engine.Homepage | Full Review

Hedgewars

Hedgewars is a Worms-like game which preserves the original feeling, but brings some really neat features like user registration and online playing, new maps, game modes, sounds and graphics. For the fans of the Worms series, this is definitely a really good, free alternative.Homepage | Full Review

Battle for Wesnoth

This a the very popular and very addictive turn-based game. The Battle for Wesnoth takes place in fantasy universes, with 7 different factions available, and battles taking place over hexagonal tiles, with different unit abilities, traits and terrain defenses. Although it has some simple rules, the gameplay can be very dynamic and complex, with matches ranging from minutes up to hours.Homepage | Full Review

OpenArena

OpenArena takes the ioQuake3 engine and replaces all the Quake 3 assets with free ones. The result is a completely free Quake 3 clone, with its own maps, player and weapon models, sounds, and a good online playing experience. OpenArena brings some really nice game modes, including mutators (like Rocket-only mutator or Instantgib mutator).Homepage

SuperTux

This is a Mario clone with Tux as the protagonist. SuperTux includes several missions with lots of levels, all the monsters and techniques specific to the genre.Homepage

Warzone 2100

This is a real-time strategy game focused on research of new technologies, with a very ample tech-tree due to the available possibilities.Homepage | Full Review

AssaultCube

This is based on the Cube engine, it is a first-person shooter game somewhat different than the casual players. There are lots of maps, weapons and especially game modes, like the popular CTF ones (including Keep the Flag or Hunt the Flag) or the One Shot, One Kill one. Trickjumps are also possible, and they are a bit different in AC in that you can also use the so-called “rifle jumps” to propel yourself higher.Homepage | Full Review | Guide

Stunt Rally

Based on the VDrift and OGRE engines, Stunt Rally is a 3D-intensive racing game with beautiful scenery and several interesting tracks.Homepage

Neverball

This is a ball-driving game, with the goal of running the ball all over various maps and collecting all the gold without falling off. Neverball can be real fun to play, however it requires great skills and tricks in order to master it, especially on high-difficulty levels.Homepage

Supertuxkart

Supertuxkart is a popular racing game with a funny twist. You can choose from various missions and complete different tasks to unlock more tracks. It’s quite a nice compared to all the more “serious” racing games.Homepage

Sauerbraten

Based on the Cube 2 engine, Sauerbraten is a shooter that provides a bunch of game modes, ranging from DM to the CTF family or Instagib.Homepage | Full Review

Although not completely open-source due to a less permissive assets license, worth mentioning are also Xonotic, Urban Terror and Warsow.

Have some more? Please share them in the comments below.

]]>http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/02/12-completely-free-open-source-linux-games/feed/40 A.D. Alpha 9 Review and Ubuntu Installation | Screenshotshttp://www.tuxarena.com/2012/03/0-a-d-alpha-9-review-and-ubuntu-installation-overview-screenshots/
http://www.tuxarena.com/2012/03/0-a-d-alpha-9-review-and-ubuntu-installation-overview-screenshots/#respondSat, 31 Mar 2012 09:04:53 +0000http://www.tuxarena.com/?p=19990 A.D. is a strategy game that has been around for quite some time now, and it reached a decent level of completeness despite the fact that Wildfire Games are releasing only alpha versions. It’s free, open-source and available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X and the latest alpha, codenamed ‘Ides of March’, comes with a whole bunch of new features and fixes.

The game resembles an ancient warfare universe, much in the way Age of Empires series did. The new key features in this version include (from the changelog on the official website):

a new, complete faction called Roman Republic, which comes with a new art set for buildings, units and ships

a new combat system adding bonuses and weaknesses to units

a new trading system, which allows you to choose which resource to be gained by a trader, available on both water and over land

new random map scripts

new animations for several ships, units and animals

new AI improvements, including including a serious bug fix and performance increases

four new music tracks and a re-done track

many other bug fixes and minor features

Features & Gameplay
The game comes with 3D graphics using OpenGL, allowing you to zoom in/out and to rotate the image. After starting a new game only few options can be configured though, like enabling or disabling shadows, water reflections or the music. 0 A.D. features both single player and multiplayer, with the single player mode offering a skirmish-like mode, no campaigns being available at the current time. In single player you will fight versus qBot, the default A.I. used by the game. A scenario editor which can be started in-game via the Options menu is also available.

Main menu

The multiplayer mode features direct connection only, there doesn’t seem to be an Internet server, so you can either host a game or connect to another game by specifying the machine’s IP.

Starting a single player game

It can be ran in fullscreen mode or windowed mode using Alt+Enter to switch between them.

0 A.D. features a lot of maps, several factions like the new Roman Republic, Iberians, Celts or Hellenes, combat units, buildings for training new units and technologies, a trading system, and naval ships.

The gameplay is pretty much similar to the one of Age of Empires in that you gather food, stone, gold and wood, expand and upgrade your buildings and units, build up a strong army and defeat your opponent.

Currently 0 A.D. doesn’t offer configuration options like changing the resolution, configuring keyboard shortcuts or changing the sound/music volumes. The available hotkeys are listed here.

You can use Alt+Enter to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode, or F2 to take a screenshot in PNG format.

Installation
Instructions for installing 0 A.D. in various Linux distributions can be found here. To install 0 A.D. in Ubuntu you can use the repositories provided by the official project by issuing the following commands in a terminal: